Artist Emma Ingham has some colourful stories about founding the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard.

While getting things off the ground in the early 1980s, she stood in front of a bulldozer, pulled a bus out of a hole and baked a lot of moussaka.

The centre, which now represents more than 100 local artists, celebrates its 40th anniversary this month.

When Ms Ingham came home as a young woman from the Parson School of Design in New York, her dream was to create an artist colony in Bermuda.

“I knew there was an immense opportunity for the island to recapture what we had had in the 1930s and 1940s when Canadian and American artists came to Bermuda to work,” she said.

She found an ally in former Mayor of Hamilton John “Jay” Bluck, who ran the Heritage House Gallery in Hamilton.

“He could always see things other people could not see,” she said. “One day he called me into Heritage House in his gruff manner. I thought goodness, did I buy something and forget to pay for it? When I got there he said, ‘How are you at conducting meetings?”

Mr Bluck shared her vision and soon so did J.C. “Kit” Astwood and Sir James Astwood.

“We took over what was previously the bright blue headquarters of the PepsiCo Caribbean office in Dockyard,” Ms Ingham recalled.

“Every time we painted the front studio, all the blue would come through again. We finally got rid of that colour.”

She was just as passionate about preserving Dockyard’s historic heritage as she was about art.

“When we moved in there was an active dump where the children’s playground is today,” she said. “One Christmas weekend we found a bulldozer going through historic, hand-built walls so that they could enlarge access to it. I said, ‘No, you won’t’. I stood there in front of the bulldozer and used some unladylike language until they finally stopped it. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done by then.”

It took several years to get the place fit for art. Ms Ingham remembers artists such as Alfred Birdsey, Joy Bluck Waters and Diana Tetlow cleaning windows and clearing out rooms.

Initially, she had planned to have living space for artists upstairs and art downstairs, but the West End Development Corporation was not keen on the idea so they had to drop it

“There were days when I wanted to give up and throw the rag in but I would not do it,” Ms Ingham said.

Artist Charles Zuill was another crucial part of the founding team.

“Because of his self assuredness, he held on to it,” Ms Ingham said. “He wanted to create a national gallery for Bermuda [which he eventually did at City Hall], but I thought you needed to take baby steps first before you could achieve that goal.”

Ms Ingham would often cook elaborate meals to sweeten the appetites of stakeholders and volunteers.

“I am a really good cook,” she said.

On one memorable occasion she held a dinner in the centre for a group of visiting American tourist agents.

“It had been raining for days beforehand,” she said. “The West End Development Corporation had been doing some work to make the roads passable. I was inside waiting to welcome the group. We had everything set up, when a bus came around the corner. The next thing I heard was an almighty screech. Wedco had put a steel sheet across a hole that had been made by excavation.”

However, there had been so much rain that the metal sheet had shifted significantly. Half of the bus disappeared into the hole.

Several men at the dinner went to fetch pieces of lumber to push under the tyres so that it could drive out again with the help of ropes.

Everyone available was put to work pulling the bus out of the hole as it revved its engine. Afterwards everyone had a good laugh and went back into the centre to find food and wine.

“Our visitors thought this was just great,” Ms Ingham said.

Today, the centre has a sign on the front door saying it is pet friendly. On the wall above the cash register is a life-size portrait of Little Guy, a black and white cat who once had the run of the place.

Ms Ingham said there was always a cat, whether they wanted one or not.

“We had this big orange cat that took up residence,” she said. “One night I got a frantic phone call from the Somerset Police Station. The alarm was being triggered and they wanted me to go up there and let the police in so they could investigate.”

The police thought it could be a prowler.

“I raced up there from Southampton, and met a young officer,” she said. “He told me we had to be rather quiet just in case there was someone inside.”

When they opened the door they found their prowler: the orange cat. He had tripped the alarm.

“I still have no idea how he got in,” she laughed.

Four decades later, Dockyard has become a thriving mecca of culture. The centre has grown to represent 100 local artists of all types. The only caveat is that artists have to be resident in Bermuda.

To mark their 40th anniversary this month, the gallery at 7 Freeport Road will be holding The Originals, a show of work by the first artists to exhibit there: Ms Ingham, Vaughan Evans, Desmond Fountain, Sheilagh Head, Christopher Marson, Sharon Muhammad, Lynn Morrell, Otto Trott and Charles Zuill. The exhibition will be held on October 20 from 4pm to 6pm.

Ms Ingham, 78, now lives at Westmeath Residential and Nursing Home on Pitts Bay Road in Pembroke owing to health challenges. She has a workspace to paint and draw set up in her room, or she goes outside on the balcony.

Artist Heidi Cowen took over running the centre several years ago.

“I used to hang out up here as an artist,” she said. “I was here a lot so I used to help out.”

Artist Christopher Marson asked her to be on the committee.

“He promised the meetings would be short and there would be wine,” she said.

As it turned out, the first meeting was long, and there was no wine. She is still mildly miffed about that.

“I went from just being on the committee to running this place, and here I am,” Ms Cowen said with a laugh.

She loves what the place represents.

“We encourage artists at all stages of their career,” she said. “We are not pretentious.”